Diagnosis and coping

Well where do I start, how do I effectively explain what is going through my head, where do I begin? It is my hope that I can answer those questions, and do so in a way that is understandable. It hopefully isn't a big deal, atleast it isn't right now, but I was recently diagnosed with a disease that I had hoped never to get, and that is type II diabetes. As an Acute Dialysis Tech I see what happens when people don't take care of their diabetes, they get renal failure, and thus dialysis is needed. My feelings of fear that this may be my fate depresses me, but this disease is diet controlled at this point. How did I get into this predicament? That one is easy to explain, getting fat caused this, and not doing much about it, until now. Poor Julie has to help me watch my carb intake, which means making the family suffer for it. Ha the family so far hasn't suffered, in fact we have gotten some pretty good meals so far from this, and I expect there will be many more. With careful diet changes and going out to exercise I hope to be able to keep this disease at bay. Although once diagnosed it is never cured and will always have to do sugar checks, have a low carb diet, and get off my butt and exercise. Ya and nursing school hasn't helped, not only is there added stress, but knowing what I know about diabetes this is frustrating. Only thing to now do is to go forward and deal with what I have been dealt and make it the best. Protein is my friend, more excuse to BBQ every chance I get ;)

Welcome Isaac

It has taken me a week to write this, as Isaac is now a week old, and time just seems to speed up. Last Wednesday evening I went to get into bed, which disturbed Julie enough that she needed to go to the bathroom, as she stood up her water broke. Yikes, not so soon, this is happening 3.5 weeks early. Isaac was born May 19, 2011 at 3:48 am. What a great addition to this crazy family, he is so smart and strong, really a great baby so far ;) I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Click on the pic to enlarge!

Trying not to discuss politics

The day after elections, it's really hard not to talk about politics, so with this post try will try to refrain, but I do have one thing to mention that I will get too. But first a couple of funnies.

Yesterday Emily and Jake got a ride to school, well Emily did and Jake rode his bike as our kind neighbor followed. I was already at the kids school working the polls and Julie was suffering from being prego, she is so exhausted. Anyways Jake got to the school safely and started to get his bike lock off, as he was doing so he was telling my neighbor that the code to his lock is very secret and he will never divulge the "secret code". In the process of getting the lock off and locking the bike the "code" got scrambled and was having difficulty getting his bike lock back on. The neighbor offered help, Jake then yelled "the code is 3141". So much for a secret code when half the parking lot heard what it is!

This I posted on Facebook today, My father in law bought an old wood chipper, the blades are chipped and very dull, so he decided to call the 1800 number for service and parts that was on a sticker and got a phone sex hotline instead. He is a bishop in the LDS church, bad bishop bad! This has made me laugh since I heard about it last night.

Lastly I will not mention politics why sour this post with that garbage.

Another Sibling dropped off at the MTC

This has been a crazy week. Jason my little bro arrived to Salt lake City monday morning to report to the Missionary Training Center on wednesday. When he landed we started off running, did more shopping that one day than several days worth of shopping. We where able to gear him up for the upcoming adventure. Tuesday Jason and I went to the Salt Lake temple, which was amazing, been a while since I have been able to go, and I am very glad we went. The temple is always worth going too no matter how hard it seems at times to make it there.

 Tuesday afternoon was the time to BBQ and get the smoker going. Made very yummy burgers for lunch, smoked some beef jerky and for dinner cooked some amazing New York steaks. Had enough meat to last me the rest of the year. Then the snow fell that night, Jason was very happy to see it snow. Then at 11pm the adventure began, the carbon monoxide detector in the basement started to alarm, I changed the 9v battery, but it continued to alarm. Since it continued to alarm I called 911 and we where told to leave our house, so we had to get all the kiddos out of bed and got into our Durango and waited for the fire dept to show up. Five minutes later they arrived and monitored the CO2 levels in the house, turned out that the battery I replaced the old battery with was also dead, ARGH!!! After a new battery that was confirmed to be fully charged the alarm no longer made ear piercing sounds. For the prompt service of the fire dept we gave the guys some apple crisp Julie had made earlier that night and some of that beef jerky that was declared  smoked steak ;) We seem to always have an adventure of sorts at the oddest of times. Jason got to experience the craziness that seems to befall us. We all got to bed very late, this was not good since I had a test to take at 8am the next day. Surprisingly I did better than I thought I would since I had very little time to actually study. On this same day we drove Jason to the MTC, he was expected to report at 1245, he got there on time. It was really neat to see the new way these new missionaries are welcomed. Back when I was reporting to the MTC it was hard, felt lost. Now when dropped off the new missionaries are welcomed with the road lined with missionaries welcoming and assisting these new missionaries. We said our goodbyes and hugs exchanged and Jason was welcomed by 4 or 5 missionaries leading him as to where to go and that was the last we saw of him.  Jason was welcomed into good hands and it was great to see the support that was given.

A great thing living here in Utah is that I can be there for my siblings. I was able to drop Melissa off at the MTC as well several years ago, what a great opportunity! I will miss Jason, but he will do well, he is in good hands, and I have faith that he will be successful and be able to learn the things he needs to learn to be a great missionary and whatever is in store for him throughout his life. Love ya Bro!!

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